The Dark Moors

Hello All,

I’ve had a busy week so let me try to recap it as succinctly as possible for you.

The biggest news in England is, strangely enough, the US elections. I went out to watch the elections with one of the med students living downstairs, Kat, and some of her friends. The student union was packed to overflowing with people crowding around the television. Eventually our little group gave up trying to vie for a seat, so we all went back to someone’s house to just watch it on BBC. Listening to people on TV talk about American politics with British accents was hysterical. It was actually quite educational because the news anchors had to explain how the election process worked. Obama was the favourite over here by an enormous long-shot; I actually haven’t met a single British citizen who said they supported McCain. But that’s that, and with Obama as my new Commander in Chief, I am not legally allowed to publicly criticize him.

You wouldn’t believe what I saw on the BBC, though: Culpeper! BBC did an entire piece on Culpeper County, Virginia during the election. They zoomed in on the map of the US to a nice 3D cut-out of Culpeper and flashed some demographics and statistics of the county. I couldn’t believe my eyes. To think that in Sheffield, England, I was watching TV coverage of Culpeper!

The next day was Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Day. During this holiday, they celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up parliament on November 5^th, 1605. Guy Fawkes was a recusant, a Catholic dissident to the Church of England (as opposed to the dissenters, who were the puritans and other protestant resisters), during an age when anti-Catholic fervour was rampant in England. The Continent (aka: Europe) was overtaken with the Wars of Religion, which were obstinately between the Catholics and Protestants, although in most cases the wars had less to do with doctrinal divides than with fallen humanity, pride, and the insatiable quest for power. Guy Fawkes, although he was English, fought for Catholic Spain and become an expert in explosives.

In the Gunpowder Plot, Fawkes was placed in charge of executing a plan to assassinate King James by blowing up Westminster Palace during the Opening of Parliament ceremony. Fawkes and his friends tried to dig a tunnel underneath the House of Lords, but this proved too time-consuming, so they did the sensible thing and just rented the cellar. Over the next several days they loaded over 1800 pounds of gunpowder in the room they had rented. Warned by a letter written by one of Fawkes’ accomplices, the Palace Guards searched the cellar and found Fawkes with a burning torch in hand. He tried to light fuse and blow up the gunpowder, but was caught just an instant before he could reach the fuse. Fawkes was tortured, hung, drawn, and quartered.

“Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I know of no reason

Why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.”

Traditionally, the English have huge bonfire on the 5^th of November and burn effigies of Fawkes (as if torture and execution weren’t enough of a punishment). Nowadays, fireworks are the slightly more politically correct way of celebrating, although plenty of people still ‘burn the Guy.’ I watched the fireworks with some friends from the Navigators Bible Study. There are hardly any fireworks ordinances in the UK so on Bonfire Night big fireworks shoot off from backyards all over the city. The way that the fireworks came semi-randomly from every direction reminded me of television footage of anti-aircraft fire over Baghdad on the first night of the war. It even sounded like a war zone with all the crackles, shrill whistles, and booms echoing from the streets. A deep fog had settled across Sheffield, so watching the fireworks was like watching lightning behind clouds – the silhouettes of the skyline would temporarily light up from the diffused, pastel glow of the fireworks through the mist.

In other exciting news (for me), I moved into my office on campus this week. I have a desk, a new computer, a file drawer, and one officemate – Gram. Gram is a post-doc research engineer who is also working in air traffic control. He seems really nice, so I think we will get along just fine. Now I don’t have to queue up for a computer and internet connection in the library, so I’m happy.

Friday evening I went to some friend’s house for dinner. We had a tradition Yorkshire dish called “Toad in the Hole” which is sausage in Yorkshire pudding. It was amazing and I’m going to learn how to cook it for everyone back home. Remember that pudding here comes in more varieties than chocolate and vanilla; black pudding, for example, is made of congealed blood. Yorkshire is known as a fairly industrial and working-class part of England (Sheffield is in South Yorkshire) so the food is warm and hearty, and their accents are rough. I tend to think of Sheffield a bit like a miniature Pittsburgh set in the Shenandoah Valley. Some of my favourite local idiosyncrasies are: calling everyone ‘luv;’ considering ‘poorly’ to be a state of being (“Hanna is poorly.” Aka: Hanna is sick); calling oatmeal ‘porridges’ (as if each grain was a single porridge, and therefore a bowl-full is plural); and how the word ‘bus’ rhymes with goose!

On Saturday I went hiking. I got a late start because the weather was predicted to be heavy rain so I slept in, but when I woke up, it was beautiful (I don’t know how they can predict that the world will burn up in 500 years when they still can’t predict the weather tomorrow...). At any rate, I took the train to Edale in the Peaks. Edale is deep in moor-country, in the Dark Peaks, about half way between Sheffield and Manchester, and is actually a collection of several hamlets called ‘Booths,’ such as Grindsbrook Booth. The Booths were originally ancient barns or shelters for livestock and over the eons villages grew up alongside them.

Arriving at Edale, I threw a big rock into my rucksack (to add a little weight) and started up the trail leaving the Booths behind. This area is a favourite for hikers because the peaks here are quite tall by English standards and they all have awesome names like Kinder Scout, Nether Tor, and Grindslow Knoll.

Initially my trail took me straight up the hillside through some sheep pastures but eventually it levelled out along a rocky, windy ridgeline. The wind on ridge was unbelievably strong, almost blowing me off my feet (literally). One time I got soaking wet when a gust of wind blew water from a creek below me upward into the air and onto the path nearly ten feet higher, like an upward waterfall. There was also one time when I wanted to take a picture, but I couldn’t because I was afraid the wind would blow the camera out of my hand!

On top of the hills I could almost touch the clouds, which were floating only twenty feet above me. This area is actually where many World War II pilots met their demise. They would try to fly low, below the clouds, to keep oriented with the ground, but the clouds would keep getting lower and the peaks higher.

Many of these hiking trails were once ancient shepherd’s paths, then footpaths to markets, and then highways for invading armies. I couldn’t help but think about the Roman soldiers as they advanced their conquest across Britain, across these difficult mountains. I can imagine them cursing the cold rain and the loose rocks that kept giving way under their heavy armour.

The view from the top was absolutely stunning – one of the best I’ve seen yet. The whole valley was spread out below like a tapestry of greens, browns, blacks, and golds, marbled and brought to life by the shifting light of the sun breaking through the barricade of the storm clouds. Believe it or not, I actually saw the rainbow’s end. A brief rain shower had just blown over and the sun was again beginning to peak through to the valley. A certain patch of trees seemed to be especially illuminated, and while I was looking at the woods, I saw the faintest trace of a rainbow as it touched the ground. It was apparent to me but would probably never show up on film. So, it seems that the old Irish legend is not actually true. I was disappointed to find that there was not a pot of gold waiting for me under the last fleeting gleams of the rainbow’s magic (of course, I was reminded that the real treasure beneath the rainbow, the creation of God, is far more valuable than any amount of gold).

The Dark Moors have seemingly contradictory qualities about them. In one sense, they can be depressing: bleak, brown with dead heather, lonely – moor after dark moor of uninhabited wilderness. The morose, sorrow laden clouds seem to cover the valley like some sort of funeral shroud. The mud is deep and black, and the water in the streams looks like coffee.

At the same time, there is a certain rugged peacefulness in the old hills. You can almost feel the faithfulness of the ancient, weathered rocks, battered by the mocking wind. There is a certain joy in the way the sun peeks through the dark clouds and in the strange beauty of the tiny flowers attempting to grow on the otherwise desolate mountainside. The sheep are content to roam, warmed by the providence of fleece against the cold Yorkshire weather.

I can see Christian parallels here, too. There is the profound realization of the smallness and the vanity of man compared to the vastness of God. You can see how the attributes of God are displayed in the strength of the peaks, the power of the wind, the gentle dance of light on the valley. Even the muddy, rocky footpath acts as a reminder of the difficulty of pursuing God in a fallen world. It must have been similar for Moses on Mount Sinai, only a thousand times more intense.

This is the kind of place where I imagine Tom Bombadil lived in Lord of the Rings (sadly, only in the books, not the movies).

Well, when I got back down the mountain and into the village, I found the Old Nag’s Head pub. The sign said that muddy boots were welcome and the smoke from the chimney promised a crackling fire inside, so I consented to a lunch of pea soup and fresh bread, which was quite good. I boarded the next train for Sheffield and was back by 5:00.

So, overall, I had a great week. It was pretty busy, but very rewarding.

Bye for now,

Will

Current Reading: State of the Arts, by Gene Edward Vieth

Current Bible Reading: Hosea

Current Music: The Baltimore Fiddle Fair